Merlin Works His Magic

Mick McCarthy is making friends fast. It`s less than a month since he took over at Molineux, but in that time he has brought about a transformation that is verging on miraculous.

On Tuesday, Mick got his first taste of real action at Molineux, when his 10 man Wolves battled hard to take all 3 points off Ipswich Town in front of nearly 20,000 fans.

Gone were the days of casual dugout leaning, watching vacantly as a hapless Wolves struggled to mount a cohesive threat on their opponents defence.

In its place was a man wearing his heart on his sleeve, prowling his technical area and sharing every agonised moment with the paying public, as his 10 man side dug deep to deny Ipswich any spoils from the game.

'Fans love to see a performance like that and the lads did everyone proud. We all suffered out there.

'We were all on our feet when Jay got that goal and then when Carl got sent off we were all going to throw ourselves under a bus.

'And then the penalty went against us and we were all worried sick. I'm no different from them in that respect.' Mick said following the hard fought victory.

And in that final, sentence lies the key. Mick McCarthy is no different, he`s one of us, which is in stark contrast to the reign of Glenn Hoddle.

There was never a real feeling that Hoddle was part of Wolves. And Hoddle did little to create one. There was always an air of convenience to his stewardship, that he was waiting for something better to come along and had no intention of emmersing himself in the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers as he didn`t intend being there very long.

Mick McCarthy has already made his long term intentions clear by moving to the midlands, intending to be close to the local community, and the club. He also brought with him a reputation for straight talking, and that is exactly what he is delivering.

And if he continues averaging 2 points a game, he will confound all the pundits and have Wolves in serious contention for promotion. And that truly would be a magicians feat to be proud of.

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i posted this reply on other forums just after i got back from tuesdays game,wolves played well considering we were down to ten men for most of the game,bothroyd took his goal well and could have scored three,clapham also came close in the first half,special praise to every player on the pitch tonight,even the subs,pride and passion shown tonight,very enjoyable game!both centre-half played their socks off,breen won everything in the air!,more of the same against preston

I saw Wolves play like world-beaters many times under Glenn Hoddle. An Arsenal fan once called me during a match last season to commend Wolves and expressed concern that Wolves might soon be in the Premiership! He was worried that if Hoddle could get championship players to "play like brazil" then what would happen when they got to the Premiership and upgraded the quality of the team? Just for the record, Glenn Hoddle, throughout the match was leaning casually against the dug-out...

where do i start, i think we have been brought back to earth very quickly,reality check needed,three individual mistakes for each preston goals,but they were put away well,credit where credits due,preston kept plugging away and got their just rewards!not gonna mention how good/bad our players was!,i'd be here all night, a few looked way out their depth but that could be said about both sides due to the youngsters on show!at the start of the season i said anything between just above the relegation zone and half-way,i'll stick by that,a lot of work needs doing but its only our third game!